{"id":1697,"date":"2015-12-02T06:30:05","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T06:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2015-12-02T06:30:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T06:30:05","slug":"harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-december-1-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-december-1-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold Jaffe’s Dispatches from India<\/em> – December 1, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hindus & Jews<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After the Warsaw uprising, reporters attempted to interview two of
\nthe Jewish insurgents who survived and were moving to Israel.
\nThe two fighters were so enraged\u2014with a furious cold rage\u2014that
\nthey looked through the reporters without uttering a word.<\/p>\n

After the Holocaust, surviving European Jews moving to Israel
\nunderwent what can be called an accelerated Social Darwinism from
\na mostly selfless social mindedness to what many of us have
\nwitnessed with distress in Israel.<\/p>\n

Sitting in a rare Hindu-owned bar in Varanasi sipping Kingfisher and
\nlooking at flat-screen Bollywood fantasies, I see round-faced Indian
\nmen with mustaches posing as iron-jawed heroes and villains.
\nI imagine them as children, middle-class, coddled by their parents.<\/p>\n

I watch them in real time, often thin with stick-out tummies, round
\nfaces, waggling their heads, gesturing with their hands, but not in
\nthe decisively \u201cmasculine\u201d way that southern Italian males gesture
\nwith their hands.<\/p>\n

Primarily it is the Punjabi Sikhs who have the stern features of
\nwarriors, tested fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Indian in
\nprinciple but also separate, always close to secession.<\/p>\n

The hungry, invisible Indian low-castes are gaunt and blackened but
\nnot hardened as African slaves like Nate Turner had to become and,
\nlater, Malcolm X, with his intelligent, enraged, cut features.<\/p>\n

Am I suggesting that surviving European Jews had to become
\nharder to endure?
\nYes, though like the surviving Warsaw Ghetto fighters, not like their
\nEuropean genociders.
\nNot, that is, at the expense of suffering brother and sister
\nPalestinians.
\nAnother fatal irony of history.<\/p>\n

Am I suggesting that Hindus have to become hardened to win a war
\ndecisively?
\nNo longer.
\nWar in the new millennium is increasingly fought online with deadly
\nalgorithms, and middle-class Indians are expert at electronics.<\/p>\n

Previously, states like Israel and India maintained well-equipped,
\nrigidly organized armies and warred, with variable success, strictly
\noff-line via a traditional, Euclidian–so to speak–perspective.
\nThat centralized perspective has been put under erasure.
\nTorqued, ruptured, pulverized.<\/p>\n

Now an electronic nerd will often make a better \u201cwarrior\u201d than the
\nfierce survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto.
\nThink of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
\nWikiLeaks.<\/p>\n

I wish, though, that the Untouchables and Indian low castes, who
\ncan\u2019t afford high-level technology, were fierce-minded like the
\nWarsaw Ghetto warriors and insurgent African slaves, instead of
\npassively devotional, so they could fight old school in real time for
\nequal status.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/jaffeantijaffe.sdsu.edu\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jaffeantijaffe<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/haroldjaffe.wordpress.com\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hindus & Jews After the Warsaw uprising, reporters attempted to interview two of the Jewish insurgents who survived and were moving to Israel. The two fighters were so enraged\u2014with a furious cold rage\u2014that they looked through the reporters without uttering a word. After the Holocaust, surviving European Jews moving to Israel underwent what can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}